Innocence Unmaintained
by inspiration-is-not-here
Summary: Nothing is ever as it seems...
1. Lost Innocence

Chapter Uno  
  
Greg was dancing around to Stacie Orrico's More to Life when Sara walked in, in a lab coat with her hair twisted in a messy bun at the top of her head.  
  
"Sar? You OK?" Greg instinctively knew whenever anyone on the CSI team - especially Sara - was distressed. He thought of it as, in his own words, a gift yet a curse. When he had explained this to Grissom, he had been answered by a sarcastic raise of one of those bushy grey eyebrows that just begged for plucking.  
  
"Argh!" he was answered with. She strode across the lab, slammed down a bag of something and sat. Eventually, Sara snapped back into reality and looked him in the eye. "Listen, Greg, I need you to match the fingerprints on this kitchen knife."  
  
"Inexperienced killer?" Greg enquired tentatively. "Didn't he even try to cover up his crime?"  
  
"She," said Sara dazedly. "I'm sure it's her."  
  
Greg shook his head, and a floppy strand of blond/brown hair flicked out of his eyes and joined the spiked style on top of his head. After working two days straight, the gel was failing him and he made a mental note to buy something more permanent. He wondered whether he should dye his hair. Platinum blonde perhaps, or maybe gothic black?...  
  
Suddenly, Sara got up and made like she was leaving.  
  
"Hey, wait!" Greg called after her. She turned. "Aren't you going to tell me anything?" he asked, slightly hurt.  
  
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Greg, I'm just really... well, it's the sort of crime I never thought I'd see."  
  
Greg patted the table beside him. "Tell all," he said, slipping the knife she had handed him under the microscope. "DNA extracted and conversation with a caring guy while you wait."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Even Grissom had been disgusted at this sort of crime. When he had arrived at the crime scene, amidst the police, detectives and confusion, and climbed over the Do Not Cross tape, he had been greeted with something he had never seen in all his years of CSI.  
  
A little girl, covered in blood, was standing, sobbing, over the body of another girl.  
  
"This is Minnie Stevens," Brass told Grissom. "Twin sister of the late Tara Stevens, lying in front of you."  
  
"Why hasn't the body been taken away?" Grissom demanded.  
  
"Evidence." Brass shrugged. "They're afraid to move her just yet. The amount of blood spillage could tell us how quickly she died."  
  
"Any suspects?" Grissom was cut short by Minnie's loudening sobs. "Where are her parents? Social Services?" he called.  
  
"No one can get her to move," said a female detective, arriving on the scene.  
  
"How did she get so covered in blood?"  
  
The detective and Brass looked at each other.  
  
"Answer me!" Grissom cried, annoyed. He turned to the little girl, trying to feign friendliness. "Hi, Minnie. How are-Hey. What's that in your hand?" His sharp eyes had caught the glint of something contained in her fist and hidden half behind her back. Jewellery perhaps? Her sister's? He reached out for it...  
  
"Grissom," said Brass quickly. "I wouldn't-"  
  
The little girl jumped and screamed. Grissom backed away, startled at her reaction and also what he had seen she was holding. A knife. 


	2. Illusions and Delusions

Chapter Dos  
  
Catherine was inside the Stevens household, and immediately knew something was wrong.  
  
"The murder was committed in here," Grissom had told her half an hour ago. "Dust for prints, and spray for blood. I'm certain it was either in the hallway or the kitchen, near where the murder weapon was picked up."  
  
But now, as she examined the blood patterns, she saw something was wrong. Very wrong. Collecting up her tools, she exited through the front door, back to where the poor dead child was being taken away in a body-bag and her sister - the suspected murderer - was being subdued by Social Services.  
  
"Where are the parents?" Catherine asked Grissom breathlessly.  
  
"They weren't present at the murder," he answered shortly. "Looks like they'll be going to prison for gross negligence anyway, if not murder."  
  
"You think they were involved with the murder?"  
  
Grissom looked at her. "All options are always open, Catherine."  
  
"But the little girl - Minnie - she's holding the murder weapon, she's not denying it, she's covered in the victim's blood!"  
  
"All options are open," Grissom repeated. "What have you found?"  
  
"Well," said Catherine, "I just thought I ought to tell you - the murder can't have been committed in the house. I've analysed the blood and it's too dry in the hallway to have been connected to the murder. The blood in the kitchen is fresher, but not enough loss to have caused death."  
  
"So what are you saying?" asked Grissom, looking her in the eye.  
  
"I'm thinking struggle in the hallway and serious injury in the kitchen, before death on the lawn. Looks like the killer was taking the victim outside."  
  
"But why would that happen?" said Brass, walking up to join them. "If the little girl killed her sister, surely she'd do it in the house, where she knew her parents weren't? Why drag her out?"  
  
"There's still the case of the struggle," Grissom murmured thoughtfully. "If you're a couple of arguing six-year-olds, do your struggles go far enough to draw blood? Then how do you cause massive injury with your bare hands before killing with a knife? It just couldn't have happened."  
  
"There's no alternative," Catherine reminded him.  
  
"Catherine," Grissom said. "There is always an alternative."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
After Sara had relayed her story, she left the lab and ran straight into Warrick.  
  
"Where have you been?" she enquired. "I saw Grissom give you another case before I went out to the Stevens place, but I never knew the exact details."  
  
Warrick sighed. "I'll bet your case isn't as gruesome as mine."  
  
Sara rolled her eyes. "I'll bet otherwise. What's yours?"  
  
"Young boy, run down by a truck in the city. The driver's a nervous wreck. Says he never saw the boy running. Alcohol and drugs tests negative - but the parents say the boy was being bullied. I'm looking for the bullies and a decent alibi, or I'll bet anything he was pushed."  
  
"Second degree murder," Sara muttered to herself.  
  
Warrick nodded.  
  
"No... second degree murder," Sara repeated. "I've just had an idea." And with that she left Warrick standing in the hallway as she thundered back to the lab.  
  
She burst in through the door, and Greg stood up as she did.  
  
"Is it-" she began, and, knowing what she was about to say, Greg nodded.  
  
"There's three types of blood on this knife," he said. "Two match the vic and her sister, but there's another. Someone else was at the crime scene, that doesn't match the family blood."  
  
"But I've been at the scene!" cried Sara. "No signs of forced entry, all signs point to the sister. She's not even denying it!"  
  
"Is she admitting it?"  
  
"Well - no, but she seems under massive shock. I thought it might be the parents, but..."  
  
"Their story fits," said Greg, sitting back down. "They did indeed leave the girls alone in the house. But it looks like this murder isn't as neat and simple as it seemed to be."  
  
"How could it look so much like the sister did it, though?"  
  
Greg shrugged. "Blackmail, maybe?"  
  
"She's six years old!"  
  
"Then look for someone who knows children!" Greg replied, exasperated. "Listen, Sara, as Grissom always says, you have to leave the options open. You could be dealing with an amateur underage killer, but then again..." He looked her dramatically in the eye, "...you could be dealing with a criminal mastermind." 


	3. Things Will Blossom

Chapter Tres  
  
Brass and Grissom met up in the Interrogation Room later on, to talk with the Stevens. Grissom didn't usually help with interrogations, but he had taken a shine to this particular case, and was convinced the parents had something to do with it. The murder, not the shine.  
  
"Mr and Mrs Stevens," Brass greeted them. "You say you were out of the house at the time of the murder?"  
  
"We just went to the corner shop." Mrs Stevens looked devastated, clutching a sad ball of tissues and holding them now and again to her reddened eyes. "We needed to get some milk - we thought they'd be OK..."  
  
"Why go together?" asked Grissom suddenly. "Why not one adult go down to the shops, and the other stay home to watch the girls?"  
  
"Jim wanted to buy some gardening spray," Mrs Stevens said quickly. "I never know the right one to get. He said he may as well come too. And he never buys the right type of milk..."  
  
"Then why not write it down?"  
  
Brass gave Grissom a harsh look. He saw how distressed the poor woman was, and yet Grissom kept persisting. What was wrong with him?  
  
"I-I don't know..." the woman stuttered, just as Brass butted in -"Was there anybody else in the house with the girls at the time?"  
  
"We told you, no," Mr Stevens said. "The only people in the house were Minnie and Tara."  
  
At the sound of her lost daughter's name, Mrs Stevens burst into sobs, falling into her husband. Disgusted, Grissom left the room.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
After Brass finished the interrogation, he met Grissom in the hall. Stopping, he asked, "Why were you so harsh on those people? You know they only just lost their daughter."  
  
"Brass, don't you see what it all points to?" Grissom sighed. "Sara told me Greg found three blood types on that knife - that means someone outside of the family was probably Tara's killer."  
  
"What's your point?" Brass said.  
  
"No signs of forced entry - it points to one thing. Somebody let the killer in. The parents told us on the night of the murder that they were the only ones with a key, inadvertently giving us the clue we needed: they set that murderer on those kids. It was calculated murder."  
  
He began to walk away, but Brass stopped him.  
  
"Hang on a second - how can you say it was calculated? They might have left the kids with someone they deemed as trustworthy."  
  
Grissom looked him directly in the eye.  
  
"Then why hide it?"  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Greg had decided to go with the platinum blond, and was admiring his new look, using the shiny work surface as a mirror. The spikes just looked more defined, he thought, with a whitish surrounding. But perhaps he'd overdone it with the gel this morning. His hair looked a little like he'd swum to work.  
  
Sara came in, snapping him immediately out of it. He'd begun to notice, recently, how effortlessly good her own hair looked. So dark and alluring. Perhaps he should have gone with gothic black.  
  
"Listen, Greg, I've just been over at the Stevens place and got these fingerprints off the door handle - I need you to tell me who they belong to. Oh, and also tell me what sort of a shoe makes this footprint." She dumped a picture in front of him, of a muddy footprint with a marker next to it to tell what size it was. Just as Greg was smiling at how perfectly she had placed the marker, Sara looked up at him and said, "What is up with your hair? Did you swim in toxic waste or something?"  
  
Greg blushed but smiled. She notices, he thought.  
  
"Thought I'd go for the Art Alexakis look," he joked.  
  
"Well, if you ask me," said Sara as she left the look, "I prefer Good Charlotte."  
  
The lab door slammed beside her, and Greg kicked a nearby bench.  
  
Dammit, he thought. I knew I should've gone with black. 


End file.
